Good Impressions
by Jemmiah
Summary: ObiWan uses his special talents to get him out of a spot of trouble...


**Good Impressions**

**By Jemmiah**

* * *

No money for an air cab. Too unsteady to walk.

_Engage brain cells,_ Obi-Wan thought furiously_. Come on! _Where was the force when he needed it most?

It was the precursor to the hangover from hell itself. It was all his own fault, and come the morning he was going to die. Especially if Qui-Gon arrived back at the temple before he had a chance to sober up.

Even if Qui-Gon couldn't detect the outward signs of carefree celebration by the alcohol on his breath or the stale smell of tabac on his clothing, surely the puffiness of his eyes would give the game away. Qui-Gon was not stupid: he was one of the least foolish, most instinctive people that Obi-Wan had ever known. It had to be said that he'd attended the cantina quite willingly and of his own volition, although he had not intended on getting to the stage where he couldn't comfortably put one foot in front of the other…

It was Jay's fault, he grimaced. He knew what Alderaani black rum did to him. Trying to pass it off as Jawa juice…

Then again if he'd been sober enough to start with he should have been able to spot the difference.

Still, he wasn't the worst off. Simeon had spent the last two hours hiccuping. When he wasn't singing, that was. As for Jay, it hadn't seemed to affect him at all except that he had become even more boisterous and smug than ever before.

If it was possible.

"We need to get back home." Was Jay's useful contribution to proceedings.

Obi-Wan turned and stared at him. "Yes, I think we'd worked that one out for ourselves, Jay. But we don't have any credits for an aircab if you care to remember. Mostly due to the fact that you spent the last of it on that bottle of rum." The padawan stopped to scratch himself around his neck and shoulders. "You know I'm allergic to that stuff! I'm going to be a giant walking hive tomorrow!"

"You didn't seem that unhappy when you were drinking it." Abran pointed out, scanning the skyline for some inspiration. "Didn't let poor Simeon have a glass! Hogged it all for yourself, as I recall."

Obi-Wan narrowed his lips in annoyance but refrained from saying anything further. He couldn't very well argue against what Jay had said because it was little short of the truth. Why was it that the nicest things in life were invariably the worst for you? As a Jedi he should have learned that moderation and discipline were the way to go. Alas, both had a tendency to fly out the window whenever Jay was around.

"I want my bed." Simeon sighed. "I'm going to have an early start cleaning those freshers that An-Paj will assign to me."

"Bed is an awful long way off." Obi-Wan grumbled, transferring his attentions to his itchy armpits. "I'm afraid we are going to have to just walk home. Although my legs already feel as if they've been worn away to stumps."

"You can still feel your legs?" Simeon asked, surprised. "I lost all sensation there a few hours back."

Abran, his devious mind working overtime, slouched against the tall and decorative illumni-post that stood in the square not far from the Hell's Chance Cantina. He kicked his foot against one of the stone steps, trying to dredge one final idea from the recesses of his drink addled brain. Time, he reflected, to take stock of the situation.

"Okay. This is how I see things." Jay twirled the end of his bronze coloured padawan braid between his fingers. "We've got no money. It's cold; we all want to go home. That's the negatives. So, what advantages do we have?"

Simeon tried to mull it over for a moment but obviously found the strain too difficult, giving it up as a lost cause.

"What skills do you have that can help us?" Jay prompted. "What can you do?"

Cates shuffled awkwardly from one leg to the other.

"Er…pass?" He said eventually.

"If you'd said pass-out you would have been more accurate." Obi-Wan remarked dryly. "I don't really know what this is going to achieve, Jay. How does the ability to stick bacta plasters on skinned knees and do disgusting things with your toes help us to get home? How can being able to belch all several thousand verses of the Corellian national anthem assist us?"

"I can do that…" Simeon was clearly gearing himself up for an attempt.

"Shut up Simeon." Jay said, good-naturedly. "How about you then Obi-Wan? What skills do you possess?"

Obi-Wan wrinkled his brows. "Nothing that I can think of that would get us home any quicker."

Jay's eyes however had lit up like tiny torches. Clearly he had thought of something that neither Obi-Wan or Simeon had, all of which bothered Obi-Wan greatly as he was certain, whatever it was, would not be good news for him…

"Well, we can either hijack a passing aircab and knock out the driver with one of your socks held over his mouth," Jay continued to kick at the stone step with his heel, "or we can show some initiative."

Simeon put up his hand. "I vote for the sock."

Abran rolled his eyes. "What we have here," he fished into his pocket for a moment, "is a comlink."

"So?"

"We put in a call to the temple and ask them to send a transport to pick us up." Jay grinned at his two baffled companions. "It will assuredly work…"

"Except," Obi-Wan felt obliged to point out the flaw in Jay's master plan, "They won't send a transport to pick up three drunken padawans! You have to be at death's door before they'll send someone out to pick you up…or else you have to be on the council, like Master Yoda."

"Exactly like Master Yoda." Agreed Jay.

An unsettling silence had opened up which Obi-Wan interpreted as the sound of a thousand terrible things all heading his way. For a moment he wasn't entirely sure what it was that Jay had meant. So, a transport would stop to pick up Mace Windu or Master Yoda. What help was that to them? Then Obi-Wan looked up at Jay and realised he was being stared at the same way a Nexu might look at a Nerf…

"Absolutely not!" Obi-Wan shook his head vehemently. "Under no circumstances…"

"Oh, why ever not! You said yourself," Jay bounded a few enthusiastic paces towards Obi-Wan, clapping his hand upon his shoulder, "that you were a skilled impressionist! Why, your Krayt Dragon is just superb! And I've never heard anyone do a better Yoda than you…not even Yoda himself!"

"I am _not_ impersonating a Jedi master." Obi-Wan refused, folding his arms resolutely. "That sort of thing can land you in deep trouble!"

"One little call." Jay tried to soothe his friend. "One teensy-weensy little call to the temple…that's all it takes. _'It's Master Yoda here'_, you say. _'Come and pick me up'_, you say. Then they send a transport to the location, we tell them Master Yoda's changed his mind but that he said we were to go on without him. And then we all go home."

Obi-Wan glared at the pair of them, back and forth. _Look at them_, he thought irritably! Trying to look as cute and pathetic as a mountain hoppity when in reality they were like a couple of Rancor in disguise! Simeon in particular was trying to appear as sad and hopeless as possible in a silent appeal to his friend's conscience. The only small crumb of consolation that Obi-Wan took from the whole affair was that both Master An-Paj and Master Amaline would make mincemeat of the pair of them…

"Qui-Gon will kill me if he finds out." He said simply.

"Then don't let him find out." Begged Simeon. "Please, Obi? It'll take half a day to crawl back home, and then we really will be in trouble…"

_We should have thought of that one before we ventured out,_ thought Obi-Wan with a sigh, stretching out his hand for Jay Abran's comlink. Why did he always have to be the one in the firing line? Why did he always have to pay for the mistakes of all the other idiots around him?

_Who's the more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?_ Wondered Obi-Wan bleakly.

Like Coruscant the Jedi temple didn't really sleep. Jedi would come and go at various times, leaving for missions or returning from them. Meals (if they could be described as such) were usually always available at the refectory. The training halls were always open, as was the infirmary. For the same reason the reception hall was also always on stand by, manned as it was by several protocol droids and the occasional overseeing Jedi Knight. Obi-Wan could only trust the will of the force and hope that it was one of the droids that answered his request for transport rather than somebody who might discern the difference between his own Yoda impersonation and the real thing…

Within moments of keying in the temple call sign Obi-Wan found himself straight through to the reception. Nervously he licked his lips, whilst beside him Jay and Simeon fidgeted, waiting.

"This is the Jedi temple on Coruscant. How may I be of service?" A bright, mercifully non-human voice intoned. Obi-Wan was do delighted that he momentarily felt like punching the air. A nudge in the ribs from Jay reminded him that he was supposed to give some kind of answer.

He cleared his throat. "Like a transport sent, I would." He said in his best approximation of Yoda's back-to-front words.

At first there seemed to be some confusion; at least that was Obi-Wan's impression. There was the slightly static sound of someone scrabbling around. Then finally the tinny voice replied:

"Do I have the privilege of addressing Master Yoda?"

"Of course, it is I." Obi-Wan decided to throw himself straight into the role. "Talk like this, who else does, hmmm?" A sideways glance at Jay and Simeon saw the pair of them give him the thumbs up sign.

"Well, it's just that…"

"A transport you will send." Obi-Wan declared imperiously.

"Certainly…yes, of course Master Yoda." The hesitant voice replied. "If you can just let me know what location you are at?"

"Opposite the Hell's Chance Cantina." Obi-Wan grinned, much relieved, slipping automatically back into his own voice. Then he realised what he had done and tried to cover it by saying frantically, "I mean, by the main square in the Corellian district, yes? Hmmm…send a transport at once, if you please. Tired I am! Getting younger I am not!"

"As you say, Master Yoda." Answered the droid. "I was just wondering…"

"Yes?"

"How it was that you could be in the square when you are standing here in front of me at reception."

Obi-Wan's braid nearly stood to attention, so shocked was he by the droid's words.

"W-w-what, sorry?" He stammered, still in his Yoda accent. "Possible, how can this be?"

"Why, that is precisely what I was wondering, sir." The droid almost sighed. "Perhaps we can sort this out diplomatically? If I can perhaps pass you to the other Master Yoda then…"

"No need, there is!" Obi-Wan's stricken voice soared several octaves higher than normal.

"Oh, it is no bother Master Yoda! Please wait a moment…Master Yoda, I have Master Yoda for you…"

There was a vague scrabbling sound as if something was being moved to floor level. Obi-Wan's first reaction was to panic and drop the comlink: after all it was Jay Abran's, and if they managed to trace it then it would invariably lead back to him. Then the further uncomfortable thought occurred that if the comlink were traced to Jay then ultimately the trail would lead to him as the best known mimic of his generation. One way or another, Obi-Wan reasoned, he was up to his neck in poodoo.

"Master Yoda, this is." A slightly amused sounding voice hailed him from the other end of the comlink. "Believe I have the honour of addressing Master Yoda, hmmm?"

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to speak but no sound would issue forth, so dry was his throat.

"Curious I am, how come I to be in two places at once." Remarked the venerable old master in his singsong voice. "A phenomena I have come across but once before. Blamed upon the close proximity of too many cantinas, I believe."

On the verge of losing his nerve altogether Obi-Wan decided to change tack, and altered his voice to mimic that of Ki-Adi Mundi.

"I am truly sorry, Master Yoda. I do not know what came over me." He apologised with as much humility as he could muster. "I'm afraid that I have had rather too much to drink and it may have affected my ability to think rationally. I can only say again how dreadfully sorry I am to have been so devious in using your voice for such a despicable scheme. It shall not happen again, you have my word!"

"Send a transport, I will." Yoda replied after an awkward silence. "Be out late at this time I do not wish to be. Old, I am! Make it home on foot I might not."

Obi-Wan swallowed audibly. "Thank you, Master Yoda."

Pause.

"One more thing, Padawan Kenobi." Yoda's voice dropped to almost menacing levels. "Report to me first thing in the morning you will."

The connection cut off abruptly and Obi-Wan suddenly felt hopelessly and utterly alone.

Jay and Simeon exchanged nervous, edgy glances with one another. There wasn't on the face of it very much else they could say.

"Well," Abran said finally, "It looks as if you made a memorable impression…"


End file.
